We have had enough of action, and of motion; we
Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath and keep it with an equal mind
In the hollow lotus-land to live and die reclined,
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
Tennyson.
"Well, now that we are here, what?" Joe put the universal question. "I hopes we has it a bit easy for a change," he went on, seeing that no one rose to his query, and no doubt some dim, subconscious yearning must have stirred in the recesses of Joe's mind; perhaps the sight of the palms may have wakened this, for in his clumsy way he voiced the spirit of the poet. Indeed we had all of us sensed the languor of that lotus-land in the humid morning vistas of heavy tropical foliage lining the avenues of the city, and stretching far beyond into the blue-green richness of the Nuuanu Valley. After months of deep sea existence, the smell and feel of the ripe, luxurious land came to us with a powerful appeal. All of us felt this, but, sailor-like, the feeling was disguised in various ways.
"I hope them bulls aft gives us a fair deal," went on Joe. We were at breakfast, both watches together, assembled outside the fo'c'sle doors.
"Fair deal!" snapped Old Smith as he speared a spud. "Say, you young heifer, do you think you was brung all the way out to Honolulu for to loll back at your ease and eat the bread fruit, that we reads about, offen the fatness of the land, without no toil nor trouble? You'll get your damned good whack of sweatin' here. I know these ships, and it won't be just because the weather is hot, neither."
This was followed by dire predictions of hard grinding to come, ghastly prospects fathomed from the depth of experience by such masters of discouragement as Jimmy Marshall and Australia.
"Say, shut up, will you! Maybe it won't be so bad," piped Frenchy, who never liked to have his meals interrupted, especially when we were breakfasting on dry hash made with potatoes and onions, a real feed much needed by our hungry crowd. We had turned out at dawn for a hasty washdown, had put the long boat over the side, and rousing out a number of large manila hawsers, had flaked them down in the boat ready for warping. The cable was hove short and the quarter moorings were taken in. In addition to this a number of the men under the second mate had completed the rigging of the cargo gear. The carpenter, with me helping him, had rigged the dolly, wedging it under the pinrail on the starboard side just forward of the main hatch with blocks of wood and a small jackscrew. The large cargo blocks had been hooked and moused to the pendants, and the falls were rove, all for the starboard side, as the skipper had inspected the berth and that was to be our side for discharging at the Brewer Wharf.
Breakfast came as a rest, a breathing and a talking spell with a good day's work already to our credit. The change in routine, however, made the work seem easy enough, for we arose from our full night of rest with a feeling of wonderful vitality. Word came out that an island steamer would hold the berth at the Brewer Wharf until noon, and we were to warp in to the Oceanic Steamship landing to allow the port warden and the agents the opportunity to inspect the hatches and make a survey of the condition of the cargo, at the same time bringing us that much nearer our berth.
A plunge overboard in the early dawn, the last man on anchor watch having called me a half hour before the rest, put me in fine fettle. All hands were eager to get foot ashore and the prospect of tying up to the beach filled us with expectancy. The fresh grub, the full night in, and the electric atmosphere of contact with human affairs, gave us a keen sense of being again in the world of the living. After breakfast we sat around for a few precious moments smoking and yarning as we gazed toward the shore. News filtered out that the battleship Maine had been blown up in Havana harbor on the night of February 15th. War with Spain was imminent and the port of Honolulu was pregnant with impending world affairs, made even more intense by the fact that there was no cable in those days and news came only at intervals with the arrival of the mail steamers. War might be declared at any moment and rumor had it that a squadron of raiders from the Philippines might descend on the port.
The gunboat Bennington lay in the harbor with the old training ship Mohegan and constant gun drills were being gone through.